The new China and the old: twenty years of CSI and CFI interactions with China help reinforce Chinese scholars' efforts in boosting scientific understanding and attaining some degree of harmony in a complex country grappling with an incredible development boom. It is in our interests to continue to work closely with the Chinese, and we intend to do so

The Eleventh World Congress of Centers for Inquiry/ Transnational convened in Beijing in October 2007, the culmination of almost twenty years of interchange between the Center for Inquiry and Chinese scientists. Inasmuch as Ken Frazier has so eloquently depicted the highlights of the Congress in this issue of SKEPTICAL INQUIRER, I will focus on the reasons for the Congress and what we hope will ensue from it. Like Frazier, I was fascinated by the remarkable changes that have occurred in China since our first visit in 1988. Lin Zixin, former editor of Science and Technology Daily, the largest-circulation scientific newspaper in the world, had invited the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal (CSICOP) to visit China. Chinese scientists at that time, he said, were concerned about the growth of paranormal and occult beliefs. They wished to critically examine paranormal claims and assess the validity of external Qigong and the reality of Chi, psychokinesis, and alleged psychic diagnoses of medical ailments.

We gladly accepted the invitation and gathered a delegation of six well-known skeptics from North America, including Frazier, James Randi, James Alcock, Barry Karr, Philip Klass, and myself. We did not find any evidence of "extraordinary" paranormal powers and issued a report to that effect (see SI's Summer and Fall issues, 1988).

We noted the chutzpah displayed by psychics, whether adults or children (much had been made at that time about so-called gifted children), who tried but didn't succeed in hood-winking us. Intrigued by our methods of testing, our Chinese hosts wanted to remain in contact with us. Actually, the Chinese Association for Science and Technology (CAST), a coalition of over 180 science organizations, sponsored the exchange program. CAST, a nongovernmental organization, is somewhat equivalent to the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS).

The Chinese were especially interested in how they could raise the public's appreciation and understanding of science, combat superstition, and improve scientific illiteracy. In time they created a new organization, the Chinese Research Institute for the Popularization of Science (CRISP), which overlapped with CSICOP in its concern with the prevalence of antiscientific attitudes and the public's captivation with parapsychology, UFO abductions, astrology, alternative healing, and pseudoscience in general.

In the early 1990s, CSICOP became an integral part of the Center for Inquiry/Transnational. It has since changed its name to the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry (CSI) and broadened its agenda to defend science, reason, and free inquiry in every area of human interest. The Council for Secular Humanism (CSH) also became part of the Center for Inquiry. It was especially interested in responding to fundamentalist attacks on evolution and naturalistic methodology. CFI added to its agenda the defense of secularism and advanced humanist values not rooted in religion but secular in nature. The Chinese became interested in questions concerning individual morality and happiness, which were similar to the moral virtues of Confucianism, so they found this aspect of our work useful.

The agenda of CFI continued to interest Chinese scientists, who sent delegations to each of our Skeptics World Congresses (held in Heidelberg, Germany; Sydney, Australia; Padua, Italy; and Burbank and Amherst in the United States). More explicitly, they began to send dozens of students, scholars, and officials every year to the Summer Institute of the Center for Inquiry in Amherst, New York, and they translated many of our articles and books. CFI responded by sending two additional teams to lecture in China, and this eventually led to the establishment of a new Center for Inquiry in Beijing and the co-sponsorship of the Eleventh World Congress by the Centers for Inquiry (co-hosted by CAST, CRISP, CFI/Beijing, the Chinese Academy of Science, and many top universities and scientific institutes). CFI/Transnational was pleased to send a delegation of twenty distinguished scientists and philosophers from several countries to the Heventh World Congress.

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The basic theme of the World Congress was development of the public's understanding of science--its methods of inquiry, its naturalistic worldview, and the relationship of science to ethics. These topics are relevant to many societies, but also to the planetary community. The Chinese are concerned with maintaining internal harmony within China and especially expressed worry about global warming and environmental pollution of the atmosphere and water resources. Although there is a preponderance of evidence about the reality of global warming, Ken Frazier pointed out in his paper, a minority of readers of SKEPTICAL INQUIRER adamantly claim there isn't a problem.

All told, some seventy papers--many provocative--were delivered at the Congress, including those by eminent Chinese scientists, such as Professor Qin Dahe, renowned climatologist and meteorologist and Chinese representative to the world agency concerned with global warming (that had just received a Nobel Prize), Cheng Donghong, executive secretary of CAST, and Ren Fujun, the energetic head of CRISP. Ren and I co-chaired the Congress.